GO GOOGLE YOURSELF WITH ESSAA’S NEW METATAG SYSTEM
By Bob Liftig
As the contemporary saying goes, 20, or even
10 years ago we wouldn’t have been “having this conversation,” but WEBsite
Coordinator Joanna Keeler has enabled ESSAA to enter the 21st Century pretty much
with the Millennium.
After experimenting with a
number of Metatag enabling systems, Joanna has already begun to see the results
of her efforts. Cross notations about ESSAA featuring the names of Executive
Board members and the titles of articles in The Journal are beginning to appear
on the WEB under a variety of headings. Now, for the hard part: what all of
this means to the membership.
Metatags are defined by
GAPC.net Marketing Solutions of Elmsford, NY as:
...lines of HTML code
embedded into web pages that are used by search engines to store information about
your web site. These “tags” contain keywords, descriptions, site author
information, copyright information, site titles and more.
Search Engine Markers are
other data that search engines used to index your site, and effectively display
it in response to queries. These include Dublin Core tags, Alt tags, Comment
tags, and other important tags that can be placed within the source code of
your page for the search engines.
In addition, the GAPC.net,
a service which ESSAA is currently interested in utilizing, automatically
reviews content, generates formatted metatags and other search engine markers;
automatically identifies WEB page weaknesses, submits to major search engines
(like Google – hence, the title of this article), allows for unlimited submissions,
and partners with major search engines to pay for inclusion submissions.
GAPC.net also promises
that it will bring greater recognition to both our members and our
organization: “an increase in relevant traffic by the second and third months
of operation ... a change in the way people use their web site. Visitors will
be more inquisitive about your products, services, and/or information.”
This is the most important
reason Joanna Keeler and ESSAA’s Executive Board are considering moving forward
into the 21st Century with a metatag system – “Search Engine Optimization.”
(SEO). Here is another one of GAPC.net’s clear, future-is-now explanations: SEO
is the process of configuring a web site for maximum exposure to the search
engine spiders to ensure relevant placement within their databases. It is crucial
to stay up-to-date with all of the latest search engine trends and algorithms
to maintain that placement. SEO in itself will not and should not guarantee you
placement in the “top ten” or “top thirty” within the search engines. SEO is
not a search engine placement or ranking. Instead, it will prepare every aspect
of your web site for promotion to the search engines. This means that engine
markers are put in place, and any search engine barriers are removed.
GAPC.net talks about SEO
as a “crucial step in any web site marketing campaign,” which is more or less what
Joanna Keeler hopes will be one positive result, because ESSAA members are the
“experts” about what we do, who we represent, and where our profession should
be heading.
Whenever a Professor of Education
Administration, or a State politician, or a labor relations researcher is looking
for fresh and accurate information, we know most of them are like our
membership – they turn first to the Internet and to the cross-referencing
search engines that have become so much a part of our lives that the very name
“Google” has been entered as a verb into Webster’s Dictionary.
We want our membership’s opinions and concerns to be heard by a wider audience, and there can be no wider audience today than the one that is accessed by metatags. Look for updates on our experiment with advanced technology in The Journal, and look forward to all of our opinions being heard across the WEB.